After months of Sergio asking about going back to St Louis, we finally made it back out there. For any of you that haven’t been there, you’re sleeping on a gold mine. Led had never been, so he and Term came along for the ride too. Day one started out pretty shitty. I think we failed on like the first 5 locations we tried, so we ended up hitting a couple spots that were wide open first. Not even sure what the first building was, then hit a theater next door. Nothing special.
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @wire_atl
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @sloppystick
We ended up returning to, and getting in, most of the spots that denied us earlier. We met Johnny at a church that was pretty incredible, probably my favorite place we went. Place was in unbelievable shape with no graff or anything.
Photo by: @wire_atl
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @terminus_jk
After that, we went back to a factory where a cop was sitting earlier, and luckily he was gone. We were driving around, looking for a way in, and some old dude was shooting pics of the outside, so of course Sergio has to go make friends with the guy and invite him to come with us. We found our way in, along with this random dude, and shot until the sun went down. We were pretty dead-set on eating toasted ravioli, so we ended the night at Anthonino’s Taverna for dinner. Surprisingly, Sergio didn’t invite random guy…
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @terminus_jk
The next day proved to be more fruitful, as we drove around hitting place after place, a lot of churches and schools in Missouri and Illinois, but most importantly, we went to Sugarfire Smokehouse for lunch. Oh, and we also hit an old hotel, a municipal building, and a YMCA (there seems to be several in the area). It was a long day that ended on the roof of Johnny’s hotel with two drones and Mission Taco Joint, which was pretty tasty.
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @wire_atl
Photo by @wire_atl
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @sloppystick
The next morning, we met up at bird-shit church, pretty self-explanatory where the name came from. Flew the drone a bit inside, then stopped by a bus station and a church (which wasn’t abandoned before it had a fire a few months ago). We pretty much took it easy after that. We met with Nic to walk around downtown, then tried one last location, a mall, but we gave up on it as the sun was going down and we hadn’t gotten all the way inside yet.
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @wire_atl
Photo by: @terminus_jk
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @terminus_jk
The last day, Sergio went with Larry to do a model shoot, while Term, Led, and I went to a church to shoot. Pretty incredible church, but the most incredible thing was the shoulder-roll/dive entrance from Term. He suffered a deep bone bruise, but Term makes sacrifices for the entertainment of the masses. He only held his shoulder in pain for like 15 minutes, then he was back at it.
Photo by: @terminus_jk
We met with Sergio, Larry, and Zac downtown, where Zac stole a few sandwiches from some party that catered nearby, then we headed east to hit a couple schools. The first one wasn’t anything special, basically an auditorium and a room with decent lighting. The last place we hit was a school in the middle of the projects, where we thought Term was going to get killed when he went back for his tripod by himself. We ended up meeting some local kids inside and shot for a little while until we hit the road for our 9 hour drive home.
Photo by: @sloppystick
Photo by: @wire_atl
Photo by: @sloppystick